2018 at a glance

For more than a century, Demant has played a vital part in developing innovative technologies and know-how to help improve people’s hearing. In every aspect, at every touchpoint, from hearing devices, hearing implants and diagnostic equipment to intelligent audio solutions and hearing care all over the world, Demant is active and engaged. Our ambition is to pave new ways in hearing health, while ensuring our long-term presence and conducting business responsibly.

We create life-changing differences through hearing health

Demant is a world-leading hearing healthcare group that offers solutions and services to help people with hearing loss connect and communicate with the world around them. In every aspect, from hearing devices and hearing implants and diagnostic equipment to intelligent audio solutions and hearing care all over the world, Demant is active and engaged. On this page, you can learn more about the differences Demant makes to people.

Hearing Devices

87% of revenue

9% growth in local currencies

12,129 million DKK revenue

Fascinating prospects for future hearing aids

An Eriksholm research project Cognitive Control of Hearing Aids has recently shown, for the first time ever, that it is possible to steer hearing aids with just your brain.

Expanding the custom instruments portfolio

In 2018, new custom hearing aids were released across all hearing instrument brands of Demant.

Introduced into the existing product families of Oticon Opn, Bernafon Zerena and Sonic Enchant, the instruments will provide even more hearing aid users with the unique sound experience associated with Demant’s hearing solutions.

Small size, great performance

Across the brands, the custom instruments are characterized by their small size and great performance.

“For several years, we have worked on reducing the size of our custom instruments and optimizing our production processes when creating custom instruments”, explains Ole Asboe Jørgensen, President, Oticon Brand, Global. “For Oticon, this means that we are now able to fit more than 8 out of 10 users with an IIC instrument, which is practically an invisible hearing aid and they all offer the user the benefit of the open sound experience.”

With the new custom products, all the brands are at the forefront of the custom segment, both within size and audiology. Adding this to the already successful Behind-The-Ear products in the existing product families, the Demant hearing instrument companies are well-equipped to service current and future hearing aid users.

First-time users

First-time users of hearing aids are an important user group within hearing care. Having a competitive range of In-The-Ear products poses clear benefits when targeting these particular users:

“What we see with first-time users is that they normally want an invisible hearing aid. Therefore, it is great to be able to offer brand new custom styles to the first-time users”, Ole Asboe Jørgensen concludes.

I am surprised that the hearing aid suits me so well

In his spare time, Karsten Bloksgaard plays music in a large symphony orchestra, and his hearing aid is crucial to him. Watch the video to learn more about Karsten’s experience with Opn.

Demant and Philips partner in hearing healthcare

As a further evolvement of the multi-brand strategy, Demant will bring Philips-branded hearing solutions to the global market. The first products are expected to be introduced in the first half of 2019.

The new cooperation will not only change the way we see hearing healthcare, but also widen the definition of hearing healthcare to the benefit of the end-user and hearing care professional. Combining Demant’s world-leading hearing aid technology with Philips’ global brand presence in healthcare, the cooperation will enrich the hearing healthcare experience and support the healthy lifestyle and active life of even more people with hearing loss.

Additionally, the solutions will present unique opportunities for hearing care professionals in an ever-evolving market.

Health, caring and innovation are cornerstones in the vision of both Demant and Philips, which makes the partnership a great match for the future. Furthermore, it will strengthen and add value to both companies’ ambition to improve people’s lives.

Kaizn makes changes for the better

Oticon Kaizn is inspired by the Japanese word, kaizen that means “change for better” and that is exactly what Oticon strived to achieve by developing the artificial intelligence assistant.

Most people know that Spotify recommends new songs, based on a user’s listening history. Kaizn uses a similar process. The artificial intelligence built into Kaizn learns from hearing aid users’ listening preferences, habits and environments to predict their preferences in a particular sound scenario and automatically adjust the hearing aid settings for an optimised listening experience. It learns by using a combination of real-time data, aggregated ‘big’ data and artificial intelligence to continuously adapt to the users’ needs.

For example, Kaizn will recognise when a hearing aid user enters a noisy environment, like a loud restaurant, and will contact the user, via a push notification, to ask whether they need ‘focus‘ or ‘comfort‘ in the scenario. Kaizn will then adjust the user’s hearing aid settings to reflect that preference. Based on these choices, the AI adapts and remembers the user’s preferences in different sound settings, enabling the user to have the same sound experience every time he or she is in a specific sound setting.

The AI assistant, Oticon Kaizn, was announced as the winner of the CES Innovation Honoree Award in the Tech for a Better World-category, and the CES Best of Innovation Award in the Software and Mobile Apps category.

Hearing Implants

4% of revenue

5% growth in local currencies

509 million DKK revenue

How to design an award-winning CI

When a product is worn for almost all the waking hours of the day, the design becomes vital. Watch the video to learn more about the thoughts behind Neuro 2’s design.

Rose and Maël are growing with their Neuro 2s

The French twins Rose and Maël were both born deaf. It took several hearing tests and some time to figure out that they were bilaterally hearing impaired. They have now been aided with Neuro 2 cochlear implants and are doing amazingly well.

Diagnostic Instruments

9% of revenue

12% growth in local currencies

1,299 million DKK revenue

Treating patients from afar

With the newest Interacoustics venture within telehealth, hearing care professionals can treat patients remotely and effectively.

Imagine a hearing test involving a hearing care professional in San Francisco and a patient located in Hawaii. Actually, this feat has already been achieved thanks to Interacoustics’ new solution combining telehealth and audiology.

The Remote Audiology System (RAS) enables the hearing care professional to perform long-distance hearing testing and treatment. Through a satellite consultation from his or her main office, the hearing care professional can test, treat and advise the patient in an easy and efficient manner.

Extending the reach of the hearing care professional

The new system extends the geographical reach of the hearing care professional, which will in particular benefit patients in rural areas where treatment will be easier accessible. With less travel activities and reduced waiting time, the hearing care professional will also have time to treat and help even more patients.

Combining telehealth and audiology

The Remote Audiology System enables the perfect combination of telehealth and audiology. With its compact footprint and many functions that fits comfortably into even the smallest test room, the system creates a professional appearance to make every patient at ease.

Maico raises awareness of newborn hearing screening

Newborn hearing screening is essential to identify babies with a hearing loss in an early age and help them reach their full potential. A new and dedicated Maico website will help inform and educate everyone on newborn hearing screening. Children with a hearing loss cannot properly hear their parents speak, sing or read to them, which delays speech and language learning. Hearing loss is a barrier to education and socialisation especially when it goes undetected and untreated. A baby born with hearing loss that is not detected and treated early will not achieve the typical developmental milestones expected in the first months and years of their life.

With newborn hearing screening, children born with hearing loss can be properly treated so they can develop speech and language skills that are appropriate for their age and can start their formal education in the same classroom as their peers with a normal hearing. That is why Maico in 2018 created a dedicated website on newborn hearing screening. The website educates on how newborn hearing screening works, explains the tests, what the results mean and - most importantly - help raise awareness on how life changing early hearing loss detection can be.

Personal Communication

25% underlying growth

1,085 million DKK revenue

New direction for Demant’s audio business

In the middle of September 2018, Demant and Sennheiser KG announced the decision to end the joint venture, Sennheiser Communications and let the business segments of Mobile Music, Enterprise Solutions and Gaming headsets evolve in different set-ups.

Enterprise Solutions and Gaming headsets will evolve as an independent business within Demant while the business segment of Mobile Music headsets will be part of the Sennheiser Consumer business in the future. The separation happens in good faith and the partners intend to continue their cooperation where synergies and opportunities exist.

“As the market dynamics have changed during the years and full end-to-end dedication is needed including a focused R&D approach, the time is now right to continue - each of us - in our own focused directions”, says Søren Nielsen, President & CEO at Demant.

Current President of Sennheiser Communications Jeppe Dalberg-Larsen will continue to spearhead Sennheiser Communications during the transition period and Demant’s new company after the separation.

Going forward, Demant will take over the business segments of Enterprise Solutions (CC&O) and Gaming including the distribution, which has been with Sennheiser until now. The new entity under Demant will continue the license agreement with the Sennheiser brand for the Enterprise Solutions and Gaming portfolios.

For more than 15 years, the joint venture Sennheiser Communications, a 50/50 split ownership between Sennheiser and Demant, has successfully developed and promoted Sennheiser branded portfolios of Enterprise Solutions, Gaming and Mobile Music headsets.

Responsibility - the highlights of 2018

Demant was founded on care and responsibility and they are ingrained in our daily business. To further our purpose and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals in the increasingly interconnected world, we partner up to enact our vision.

Demant is a UN Global Compact signatory, comply with the 2016 UK Modern Slavery Act, as well as the UK Bribery Act. Apart from our binding global commitments, we have established new collaborations in form of research projects, donations made by the William Demant Foundation or partnerships with likeminded companies.

Demant cares to not only deliver continuously improved sound quality to our customers, but to improve their overall health. Our research centre Erisholm and R&D experts push the boundaries of hearing research and create new solutions, which offload the cognitive effort of hearing and enable our customers to focus on reflecting and remembering. The multinational Evotion project led by Eriksholm under EU Horizon2020 brings together 13 partners across Europe to enable informed hearing health policies through collection of evidence from 1000 hearing aid users, turned into Big Data.

Our care for people encompasses our employees globally, who are the backbone of the company. Apart from an annual engagement survey, stress management monitoring, anti-harassment and bullying policy and numerous employee benefits, our protection extends to our suppliers. Therefore, we have updated our Code of Conduct for suppliers. While the new additions to the code had been practiced, we have taken a proactive step to formalize them.

Adding to our continued environmental initiatives at our offices and our stake in offshore windmills, in 2018 we have installed solar panels in our Brisbane office, electrical car charging stations in Smørum and have a new cross-departmental team passionate about integrating Circular Economy into our global supply chain. Collectively, each year’s progress contributes to significant improvements. While we have delivered on our promise to increase the scope of our reporting, the amount of CO2 emissions per employee has decreased from 3.5 CO2 tonnes in 2017 to 3.24 in 2018.

Demant has also joined forces with Tier1Asset to repurpose IT equipment. Tier1Asset refurbishes 90% of hardware, extending its lifespan and decreasing IT waste. All data is deleted with Blancco tool, ISO27001 certified, ensuring we abide all GDPR regulations. Data protection and GDPR are essential for us. In 2018, we have raised our awareness of the data privacy in Demant even higher, taken measures to ensure compliance with the applicable legal frameworks and added a permanent Data Privacy Manager to our Demant team to reflect this.

Our people

Employees are our most important asset, and we put great effort into creating and nourishing a company culture that makes people grow and succeed. We value a free and honest communication which contributes to a professional, yet informal working environment.

Innovation

Our international R&D organisation is a major catalyst for innovation projects. All our R&D sites in Denmark, France, Sweden, Poland and China play a key role in our endeavours to always be at the forefront of development, enabling us to deliver the most innovative solutions.

Strategy

Our strategic ambition is to further expand our position as the leading global hearing healthcare company with the broadest, deepest and most innovative product offering. We invest heavily into R&D, and one of our focus areas is to exploit synergies across our business activities.

About Demant

Listed on the Nasdaq Copenhagen stock exchange as one of the 25 most traded shares in terms of free floated market capitalisation, also known as the C25 index, Demant is the parent company behind the commercial successes of such world-renowned brands as Oticon, Bernafon, Sonic, Audika, Oticon Medical, MAICO, Interacoustics, Amplivox, Grason-Stadler, MedRx and Sennheiser Communications. William Demant Invest A/S, a company wholly owned by William Demant Foundation, holds the majority of shares in Demant A/S, providing stability and strength for the long haul.

The Demant Group operates in a global market with companies in more than 30 countries, employs more than 14,000 staff and generates annual revenue of DKK 14 billion. Our products are sold in more than 130 countries where we create life-changing differences through hearing health.